


Missing Pieces and Pulled Threads

by w0rdinista (Niamh_St_George)



Series: Oliver Trevelyan [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-22
Updated: 2015-01-22
Packaged: 2018-03-08 15:42:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3214583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niamh_St_George/pseuds/w0rdinista
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His thoughts are too much a jumble these days.  Too much—too much—spread out before him.  The sky’s torn, the world’s gone mad, and everyone’s calling him the bloody Herald of bloody Andraste.  He doesn’t want it, deep down he doesn’t want any part of it—pickings are truly slim if Andraste’s chosen him to be Her Herald.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missing Pieces and Pulled Threads

**Author's Note:**

> This story features Oliver Trevelyan, archer brother to my first (mage) Inquisitor, Evangeline Trevelyan. So I suppose this would be an alternate universe wherein Oliver accompanies Evangeline to the Conclave, but he's the one to fall into the Fade and come out with the Anchor, while Evangeline dies in the explosion. 
> 
> Hints at Inquisitor/Cassandra, though they haven't quite gotten very far yet. :)

Two giant stone mabari stand sentry over Haven.Their backs are thick with snow, but it does nothing to detract from the power in their stance; they are protectors, and though Ferelden is the land of the dog-lords, Oliver finds himself pulled in by the hounds’ heavily carved features, their enormous paws, the prick of their ears.Though not a mabari, he’s reminded of the sleek, lithe spaniel he and Evie had left behind.Henry.

Maker, but his sister had loved that dog.

His thoughts are too much a jumble these days.Too much— _too much_ —spread out before him.The sky’s torn, the world’s gone mad, and everyone’s calling _him_ the bloody Herald of bloody Andraste.He doesn’t want it, deep down he doesn’t want any part of it—pickings are truly slim if Andraste’s chosen him to be Her Herald.

He’d told Cassandra he’d go back to Ostwick now if he could, and though he’d caught the flicker of disapproval in the slight furrow of her brow, it doesn’t erase the truth of the matter.He would go back if it were at all an option.He’d rather go back and tell his parents in person what had happened to Evangeline—not that he can remember, but remembering doesn’t matter, even the truth doesn’t matter.He’d tell them she hadn’t suffered.He’d tell them he’d been with her when—

_Damn it._

He wants to remember, wants nothing more than that, in fact.Why hadn’t she been with him?Had they quarreled?

The notion sends something hot and sick twisting through his gut.No.No, he knows it down to his bones; whatever had happened, they hadn’t quarreled.

How many days has it been since he woke up in a dungeon, his palm spitting green fire?It hasn’t been days; it’s been weeks.Weeks, and Oliver hasn’t properly grieved his sister yet.But how can he?How can he mourn without a body?Evangeline was there and now she’s not.The only proof she’s gone is a void—silence where there ought to be a voice, cold wind where there ought to be a warm hand.He doesn’t know what to do about it, about her, or if there’s anything he _can_ do.If Evie had lived, she’d be here—she’d be somewhere, at the very least.She’d have turned up at the crossroads or in a refugee camp or _somewhere._

He knows she’s not there because he’s looked.

It’s not a difficult climb to the pedestal supporting one of the dogs.Dropping his bow and quiver to the snow, Oliver hoists himself up nimbly, pushing away the ghost of Evie’s voice that still lingers in his mind, chuckling and asking him if he’s part squirrel.With one hand he slides the blanket of snow from the dog’s stone back, watching as it tumbles down in clumps before exploding into sparkling powder below.

He has no Maker-forsaken idea what he’s doing here.  

Oh, the borderline-unpleasant needling tingle in his palm tells him _specifically_ why he’s here—to close the rifts.Eventually, the breach.But anything beyond that?Diplomacy? _Politics?_

Evangeline would have been far better suited to this sort of thing than Oliver was.She’d always been the calm one. Rational. The cooler head that usually prevailed.She’d been devoted to her studies, magical and otherwise, and he… he hadn’t always had the wherewithal to give very much of a damn about his studies. It’s not that he’s stupid.He’s not and he knows he’s not.But his sister had _loved_ learning, delving into books and losing herself in them—it wasn’t just true for magic, either, but history and politics and philosophy and any other subject she could lay hands on. Evangeline would have flourished in the Inquisition; Oliver can feel it in his bones. But his presence here pulls and chafes like an ill-fitting shirt. It’s a sensation he is, sadly, familiar with.His parents had had their heir, Reginald; they’d had their spare, him; and then they’d had Evangeline.Evie.The darling.The squirt.

Except they don’t have Evie any more, though.And he’s the one who has to tell them.

_Shit._

He hadn’t been lying to Josephine when he’d said his parents would support the Inquisition if he were the one to write them.He’s beyond certain they’d support this endeavor, particularly once he explained to them he was doing this for Evangeline, in her name. And he is. Internally, at least; he does not want to talk about it, about _her_ , to anyone.No one knows her here—in Haven his sister is just one more unfortunate name on a long, unfortunate list.  

Gnawing guilt writhes in his belly like a snake.She’s dead and he isn’t.She’s gone and he’s here.Where’s the justice in that?Where’s the sense?

But what else can he do?Evangeline is the reason he’s stayed so far and continues to remain.She is the reason he helps and why he’s making an honest effort to understand the finer details of what it is he’s expected to do.He’s just not sure it’s doing any good.

Oliver considers for a moment lifting himself upon the dog’s stone back, as if it’s just another of his (shockingly numerous) mounts.Instead, he kicks the snow from between the dog’s enormous paws and sits between them, thudding the heels of his boots against the rock.He wants to remember what happened, but can’t.He can’t remember a damned thing about the Conclave other than the fact it’d been teeming with more people than he’d ever seen in one place.Evangeline had been there, and he by her side—her support and, though she’d have smacked him for it, her protection.It’d been a long trek from Ostwick to Haven, not one anyone ought to have traveled alone if they could help it.

_“You’ll be dreadfully bored going that whole way alone.”_

_“I think you mean_ you’ll _be dreadfully bored if you’re left with no one better for company.”_

_“I fail to see the difference, sister.”_

And so he’d come.He begged off a hunting trip he hadn’t particularly cared to go on anyway, packed his bag and the two of them—

How could she possibly be dead?She’d been _right there_.They’d scarcely left each other’s side once reaching the Conclave. _How?_ He wouldn’t have left her, not without an excellent reason, and his sister—his sister knew perfectly well how to keep herself safe. She knew how to protect herself.She knew how to _run._

How?How had it happened?

The snow-sparkle around Haven is suddenly too white, too starkly, blindingly white, and a headache has begun to thrum behind his eyes.Oliver closes  them against it, gritting his teeth at the tightness in his throat, the burn behind his lids.

“Are you well?”  

Blinking his eyes open, he finds Cassandra looking up at him, dark brows pulled into a frown that is too at home on her face. “I’m sorry?”

“You look unwell,” she says.The frown doesn’t budge.

“I’m fine,” Oliver replies.“It’s nothing that won’t sort itself out.” _One way or another._

But the Seeker appears unconvinced.“You should speak with Adan.”

“It’s just a headache,” he argues, though without heat.“It will pass.”

“It will pass more quickly,” she counters, “if you speak with the healer.”

“I doubt that very much.”

But Cassandra’s glare has swayed man and beast stronger than he, Oliver’s certain.Exhaling aggrievedly, he lowers himself to the ground, snow crunching beneath his boots.

“Very well, Seeker,” he says, stooping to pick up the discarded bow and quiver; snow clings to the fletching on his arrows.“I’ll go.But only because you appear as if you’d drag me there by the ear if I refused again.”

The faintest hint of color stains her cheeks as Cassandra’s frown deepens to a scowl; Oliver feels the oddest, most incongruous urge to grin in the face of it. He resists.“I most certainly would not stoop to such a childish tactic,” she says, straightening her shoulders and lifting her chin

“Some might argue I was acting childish and deserved it.”

“Strange you would admit that.”

With flicking fingers he frees the snow from the fletching.“The truth is most effective when it’s least expected,” he replies evenly.“And maybe I was only trying to beat you to the punch before you admitted it for me.”

Her eyes narrow, thoughtfully.“And when is the truth least effective?”

The Seeker has picked up on the very words Oliver would have preferred she ignore.Figures.It’s the silly, flippant things his mouth says that always seem to get him in trouble. “When its presence would do you no good either way,” he answers, shrugging and shouldering the quiver before turning to the path up to Adan’s apothecary.“When the person you’re giving that truth to doesn’t want it or won’t believe it anyway.”

He’s gone all of three steps before Cassandra’s voice floats behind him.“And what of those who ask for it?If I ask for the truth, will you provide it?”

He turns halfway and looks back over his shoulder at her.“Of course,” he says easily, trying for a smile.“But be certain I’d never lie to a woman who could skewer me in my sleep.”

Cassandra doesn’t smile in return.She isn’t frowning, either.She looks as if he’s a puzzle she’s trying to figure out.A knot she’s trying to unravel.Oliver isn’t quite sure whether he likes that look… or not.“Tell me, then,” she says.“What is it that troubles you?”

His expression stills. _No, I definitely do_ not _like that look._ “I’m sorry?”

“You’ve been sitting on that dog for an hour,” jerking her chin up at the mabari.“In weather like this, do not expect me to believe you simply like the view.”

“It is a very nice view.”

Hurt—or maybe it’s disappointment—flashes too briefly across her face and he swallows back a particularly vehement curse.Damn his flippant tongue, anyway.“Never mind,” she says sharply, turning on her booted heel. “It is none of my business.See that Adan—”

“Wait.”Whether it’s the disappointment in her face or the sharpness in her tone, he doesn’t know.What he does know is that words he never intended to say are somehow finding voice.“The truth, Cassandra,” he says, not unkindly as she turns to look at him again, “is that I don’t wish to discuss it.”Oliver tries, tries _so hard_ to keep his tone from sliding into something sharper than he means it to be.But even these words twist and drive into his heart.“I am here.I’m not leaving,” he explains tiredly.“I will be the Herald of Andraste, if that’s what the Inquisition requires of me.Of those things you can be certain.”

“But something does trouble you.”

“Yes,” he says, sliding the quiver more fully onto his back and resettling his bow.“Something does.”

Part of him wants to tell her, tell someone. This knowledge is a burning sort of ache lodged in his chest.His sister, his best friend, and possibly the one person in the entire Trevelyan clan who didn’t think he was a colossal fuck-up was dead.And he… couldn’t remember any of it, much less how he might have avoided remaining a colossal fuck-up by being there for her in the first place.

“Then, whatever it is, I hope…”

When he meets her dark eyes, it’s to find Cassandra’s frown melting into uncertainty.It doesn’t suit her.  

“You hope?” he prompts.

She exhales hard through her nose, but she doesn’t turn away from him, doesn’t walk away, as he’d been so certain she would.“I hope,” she says, “you are able to find some manner of peace with it.”

Peace.It’s a nice thought, but his own hopes aren’t terribly high.

“As do I, Seeker.As do I.”

 


End file.
